Educational activity guidelines

This document is a work in progress. In particular, some of terminology has not yet been finalized. In order to signal that we have not yet decided on the particular language of certain terms, we will place the terms in brackets like [this].

Introduction

Who Should Read This Document

These guidelines cover similar ground to the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines but are targeted to a different audience-- the community of educators interested in creating activities, lesson plans, and/or curricula for the XO laptop. These guidelines provide an in-depth view of various features of the XO and its user interface, and focus closely on aspects of the XO that pertain directly to the development of educational activities.

How to Read This Document

Each of you brings a unique set of ideas and experiences to OLPC. Nonetheless, we strongly suggest that you read the this document in full. Many of the terms it contains will be familiar to you, but we urge you to review them anyway. Our approach to [computer-based learning] shifts away from some traditional models, and this document may introduce some unfamiliar ideas around such otherwise familiar terms.

While we suggest that you to read this document once from start to finish, extensive use of both internal and external hyperlinking also allows you to peruse its contents at will. Hopefully, this will make revisiting particular parts of the guidelines quick and easy, and will allow you to move naturally through the details that most pertain to you.

You can view the document in three ways-- in its entirety, by chapter, or by page. To get a broad picture or to print a hard copy, you can view the document in full. Alternately, you can use the integrated navigation to move through one chapter or page at a time.

In order to make the relationship between theory and practice more clear, we often include links to sample activities and to experiences from our pilot programs. Please take advantage of these examples as you develop your own.

Providing Feedback

This document remains in flux as the project moves forward. We value any feedback that you might have, and ask that you share your thoughts and suggestions via the talk pages. Discussions surround each tier of the document; if you have specific comments, please post them in the discussion for the corresponding page. For more general comments, feel free to use the talk pages at the chapter level or for the EAG as a whole. Links to the talk pages reside next to the section headers.

Core Ideas

The Activity

On the laptop, there are no software applications in the traditional sense. Instead, the XO focuses children around the concept of the activity. Programs, projects, lessons, games-- these are all activities. On the XO, they are linked in their shared focus on collaboration and expression, and in their common methods of implementation, emphasizing journaling and iteration. Our hope is that children will come to recognize the activity as an intrinsic part of their learning experience.

The Journal

The concept of the journal as a written record of daily life is generally understood across cultures, albeit in various forms. Typically, a journal records the activities and events of a particular person on a particular day. We have chosen to adopt this metaphor-- the metaphor of the journal-- as our approach to organizing files on the XO.

Our Journal embodies the idea that the laptop should record a history of the things its user has done, or, more specifically, the activities the child has participated in. The Journal naturally lends itself to chronological organization (although it can be tagged, searched, and sorted by a variety of means). The Journal reads like a portfolio or scrapbook, recording not only the files, photos, and other digital objects that a child has saved, but also the child's interactions with the laptop and with his or her peers. The Journal combines entries intentionally created by the child with entries that are automatically created through participation in Activities. Educators should think about the ways in which they can incorporate the journal into their activities. need example.

Communication and Collaboration

Everyone has the potential to be both a learner and a teacher. In order to realize this potential, we have chosen to put collaboration at the core of the XO experience. The presence of other members of the learning community on each laptop will encourage children to take responsibility for their [classmates] learning as well as their own. This exchange of ideas both engages children in the learning process and stimulates their critical thinking skills.

In order to facilitate this collaborative learning environment, the laptops employ a mesh network that connects all laptops within a certain range. Because of the mesh network, every activity can be a connected activity. We aspire towards activities that take advantage of the opportunities for communication and collaboration that the mesh network allows. If your activity does not currently take advantage of the mesh network, please consider rethinking it in terms of this connected environment. For instance, need example. Whenever possible, activities should embrace this connectivity and emphasize the full range of collaborative processes that it makes possible.

Creative Expression

Starting from the premise that we want to make use of what people already know in order to make connections to new knowledge, our approach focuses on thinking, expressing, and communicating with technology. The laptop is a "thing to think with." We hope to make the primary activity of the children one of creative expression, in whatever form that may take. To that end, activities should focus on the creation of some type of object, be it a drawing, a song, a story, a game, or a program.

As most of us would agree, the best way of learning is by doing. We hope to apply the principle of "learning by doing" to all types of creation. For example, we emphasise composing music over downloading music, writing programs over running them. An essential part of the process of learning by doing is the process of collaborative critique, and the subsequent process of iteration that incorporating relevant revisions entails. A classroom activity based on the model of "learning by doing" should incorporate all three phases-- creation, critique, and revision. A sample activity might be: need example.

Design Fundamentals

Know Your Audience

Inexperienced

The goal of OLPC is to provide children with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. Many children in need of such opportunities have previously had little or no access to computing, and will be unfamiliar with the laptop and how to interact with it. On the one hand, this means that educators must focus energy on making their activities intuitive, and on building metaphors that clarify and strengthen the connection between the laptops and the learning experience. On the other hand, since the laptop will be the first experience of computing for many children, activities do not have to adhere to traditional models or behaviors. This frees you to innovate.

Young

Many of the children receiving laptops will be as young as five or six; others will be in their mid-teens. Those that receive laptops at a young age will continue to use them throughout their education. Therefore, it is important to develop activities for a range of ages, or that scale well across age levels.

International

The OLPC initiative, by its nature, requires international involvement and participation. Educators must keep in mind the broad range of cultures and languages that the laptops must transcend. In particular, activities should not (necessarily) depend on western modes of thinking, but should abstract ideas to a level that would be familiar to humankind in general. For instance, consider the camera button on the keyboard. Though one might be inclined to label this key with a small image of a camera and lens, the eye graphic speaks directly to our human capacity for vision, providing a cross-cultural icon that represents the computer's ability to capture what it sees. As an example of an activity, need example.

Key Design Principles

Low floor, no ceiling. This mantra should guide your development efforts for OLPC. When possible, activities should be designed to be intuitive to children of all age groups, nationalities, and levels of computer experience. We don't want to impose unnecessary limitations on learning activities designed with particular topics or age groups in mind. At the same time, however, we aim to create opportunities for all kinds of creative expression-- activities that provide a low floor for the inexperienced, but don't impose a ceiling on those who are. We hope that the following principles can offer guidance for addressing this challenges.

Constructionism

We believe that children learn best when constructing new knowledge for themselves. The goal of the XO is, simply, to give children more things to do. With activities designed to accompany their laptops, children can "learn by doing" in more and better ways than they could before.

The concept of constructionism was developed by Seymour Papert. Many of his ideas about constructionist education can be found on his website, http://www.papert.org. In particular, see Situating Constructionism and Models of Growth: Towards Fundamental Change in Learning Environments, by David Cavallo. Links to "Situating Constructionism" in Spanish, and an additional papers by Papert and Cavallo can be found here.

Malleability

A major focus of the OLPC project is designing activities-- games in particular-- that kids can examine and modify as part of the learning process. OLPC is also particularly interested in activities designed with this principle in mind. need example.

Practicality

The XO laptop will be used in a range of environments to meet a range of educational needs. In developing countries, practical applications of knowledge are often more useful than large amounts of theory. What might an activity look like designed to use the Narration tool to add audio to a set of photos documenting a well being built? need example.

Universality

Language issues, teacher/student boundaries, cultural and religious boundaries.

HIG Key Design Principles

Many of the key design principles for software development are relevant as well.

The Laptop Experience

Mesh Networking

Each XO has "mesh" networking capabilities that allow it to connect to any laptop around it. This makes it easy to kids to collaborate on activities.

Bulletin Boards

See Bulletin Boards.

View Source

See View Source.

The Journal

See The Journal.

Global Search

See Global Search.

Activities

Additional Activity Bundles

The XO comes with several pre-installed Activities. Others can be downloaded and installed. OLPC is particularly interested in activities, lessons, and curricula that make use of these applications.

Invitations

See Invitations.

Additional Features

Multi-use Trackpad

See Trackpad.

Microphone and Speakers

See Microphone and Speakers.

Camera

Each XO comes with a built-in camera, so taking pictures and making videos are easy to do. The camera can also be used for videoconferencing.

See Camera.

Hand-held Mode

The XO has a "hand-held" mode, so that kids can take their laptops out of the classroom and into the real world. In tablet mode, the screen outputs high-resolution black and white graphics that are visible in the brightest of sunlight.

See Hand-held Mode.